A Parody of Laughter
by DelightfullySpiffy
Summary: AU. He's not just Jesse St. James, the oh-so-talented and debonair singing sensation, though he honestly doubts he's even that. He's Jesse St. James, the kid who's dying inside, and he wonders if anyone cares enough to see it. Angsty!
1. Wildfire

Some days he seriously considers cutting his vocal chords out.

Like this one.

If he can't sing, he wouldn't have to be here, this legalized torture chamber of musical proportions. He wouldn't have to deal with all of this, this constant pressure and those impossible demands and the _everything_ that was driving him crazy, though sometimes deep down inside he thought that kind of maybe he deserved it.

But then again, if he he's not Jesse St. James, the oh-so-talented and debonair singing sensation, he's just Jesse St. James, the kid that no one really likes.

And the only problem with his idea is that he'd probably end up killing himself in the process. Which isn't really a bad thing if he really thinks about it. But his mother would be upset about the blood on her carpet, and his father would shake his fist and damn Jesse for taking away their money source.

Because his parents were delighted, so they told him, when they realized that the unwanted accident of a child that had sprung screaming into their lives after nine months of inconvenience had the potential to bring them money, fame, and the kind of life they'd always wanted.

They got all that, and they saw more of the money he brought in through his dance competitions and his singing competitions than Jesse himself.

So this morning, over a breakfast of nothing because his mother thinks he's getting too "chubby", when he asks if he can take a break from performing in all the various activities he's coerced into, his mother digs her long, red acrylic fingernails into his forearm across the table and hisses that if he quits anything, he'll be out on the street.

Jesse doesn't think that'd be so bad. Because it really wouldn't be. But he knows he's too cowardly to run away, to escape. He's weak like that.

He doesn't push the issue, and he goes through school like he always does, zombie-like. His parents don't care about grades, just as long as he maintains the 2.0 GPA that's required for him to be in Glee. Jesse knows he's smart. He really does. But his parents made him take the bozo classes for the nearly mentally retarded so he could spend all of his time making them money (he's actually surprised they haven't started making him "work the streets" yet. It seems like something they would do.).

Jesse makes it to the end of the day and wishes that his seventh hour math class would have lasted longer, because now he's at Glee rehearsal. And his gut is telling him that he's going to hurt today. And his gut, honed by years of experience, is never wrong.

When his mother calls Ms. Corcoran in the middle of rehearsal and tells her that Jesse wants to leave Vocal Adrenaline, he can literally see the rage that spreads like wildfire across her face.

He's scared. To death, really.

Ms. Corcoran screams at him when he's flat, when he's sharp, when he's off beat, when he's out of step, when he's not in sync, when it's his partner's fault, when it's nobody's fault.

But when she's mad, really, truly angry, she doesn't scream.

She hurts.

And she's deathly quiet now.

* * *

She's dangerous.

He still has the scar on his hairline from when she threw her water glass at his face, after he forgot the words to Unchained Melody. It hurt. A lot. His parents didn't notice. His teachers didn't notice. His non-existent friends didn't notice. No one did.

And right now, he's thinking he's going to get another scar. If he's lucky.

Ms. Corcoran slinks up to him with the prowess of a tigress, taking her time to stand up from her chair and climb up the stairs of the stage, staring him down all the while, as if daring him to move.

Jesse thinks about running, but there is no place he can go and no one he can turn to.

He's doomed.

His pulse rises, echoing in his ears, and when she stands so close to him that he can smell her perfume he feels like he's going to throw up; the odor, a strong, musky floral, makes him nauseous.

But he knows not to vomit. Because last year, a kid got dizzy from the lights and puked onto the stage floor slippery with sweat; Ms. Corcoran made him eat it, made him lick it off the floor like a starving mongrel.

Jesse will not humiliate himself like that in front of the accusatory eyes of the other members of Vocal Adrenaline. They hate him, tolerating him just because he's their lead and without him their chances of winning for the six consecutive time in a row are severely diminished. He doesn't want their friendship, their acceptance, even, though he kind of thinks that it would be nice to have friends. He wouldn't know-he's never been allowed to have any, and no one ever seemed interested anyway.

She opens her mouth, and he can smell the hot herbal tea she was drinking. Jesse's grateful that she didn't throw that at him this time; burns hurt like hell.

"Jesse, Jesse, Jesse," she says, breaking the silence with a condescending tone, bringing her hand to his face and caressing his cheek with the pseudo fondness of a lover.

The corners of her mouth turn up when he flinches.

He desperately wants to move-his instincts tell him to flee and his mind is screaming DANGER and his mind is never wrong-but he forces himself to freeze. Like a predator, Ms. Corcoran likes the chase of the hunt. Jesse won't provide her with any more entertainment. He just won't.

Jesse readies himself for the punishment she's bound to dole out when her hand drops from his cheek.

She snaps her fingers, and two of the more brawny guys join her on the stage. They're smirking, and Jesse knows they enjoy this just as much as Ms. Corcoran does.

He lets them walk behind him and grip his arms and grab his hair and angle his head _just right_. Because there's nothing he can do to stop them. Nothing.

Jesse's breathing hard now, and the feeling of utter hopelessness that washes over him and threatens to drag him under makes him want to sink into the black stage floor and die.

Her heels click on the floor as she daintily steps in front of him, twisting each of her rings so they face inward.

He waits for the pain.

And he's not disappointed.

Her hand whips through the air and lands upon the cheek that she had moments before petted with a sicking crack, the ring's sharp edge cutting like a saber through his skin.

Jesse winces, the pain exploding like red-hot fireworks into the pool of agony surrounding his face.

Ms. Corcoran slaps him again and again. He lost count at ten.

He thinks he can see the blood dripping from her hand.

And when she tires of the motions, she steps back and for a moment he foolishly, naively, believes his ordeal to be done and sags in the boys' arms. But she merely beckons for the rest of the members, who have been observing from the front row seats, to stand in their customary line.

Jesse welcomes the break before his classmates abuse him.

They relish it as much as she does, he thinks.

But all conscious thought is driven into the back of his head when a fist is driven into his gut.

And when the feeling is doubled, tripled, quadrupled, he realizes he really, truly, wants to die.

There's nothing he can do about it now, though, and he settles for second best, welcoming the familiar feeling of dripping into nothing. He knows that they'll stop when he can't feel the pain anymore.

And then there's nothing.

When nothing becomes something, he opens his eyes. And he immediately wishes he didn't, because Ms. Corcoran's face, the one he sees in his nightmares, is right above his.

"You want to leave Vocal Adrenaline?" she whispers, smirking at him through the dark brown hair that's falling on his face, repulsing him. "Then fine. Leave."

He doesn't try to hide the relief that flows through him; he thinks he should be happy, but that emotion has been extinct for a while now. Jesse sags against the stage floor, because that's all he can do. Maybe when he gets home he will smile.

"Just know, Jesse," she says, reaching out and tipping his bleeding face up with one blue fingernail, "You are _nothing_ without me."

Staring into her eyes, he exhales, a breath that is more like a broken sob than a puff of air.

Because she's right.

He'll be nothing without Vocal Adrenaline.

He can't leave.

He can't be nothing.

He just can't.


	2. An Exercise in Dramatics

Rachel Berry sits in the very last seat in the very last row, watching a very convincing exercise in dramatics.

In an elegant script she writes down "dramatic exercises" in her soft leather journal, a present from her fathers when they went to China for Harold's business meeting. It's her teddy bear, her security blanket; her thoughts, hopes, and dreams are buried in the crisp white pages. And recently, Glee has been in her thoughts, has become her hopes and dreams. So she's taken it upon herself to make Glee the best it can be, since Mr. Schuester and the amateurs who think they can sing don't seem to be trying themselves.

Spying on New Direction's rivals is one way to do that.

She knows Mr. Schuester wouldn't approve of this, but she really, truly doesn't care. Glee is her ticket out of Lima, and since Mr. Schuester is still living here, she knows he won't understand her thirst for the victory and success that will make her a star. It's pathetic, really. He's a nice man, but very quixotic in his aspirations. She pities him for believing in everyone besides her.

So she had slipped out of her Pre-Calc class a half-an-hour early (feminine troubles, she had told her very-awkward young, geeky math teacher) and driven the twenty minutes to the school at which the best Glee Club in the region performed at.

Rachel's grateful for her small figure, for her soft ballet flats, for the darkness of the auditorium. Sneaking into the practice room was a piece of cake-though she hasn't had one in years, as carbs plus sugar equals fall from fame-and Rachel is ready to glean all she can from Vocal Adrenaline. No quarter, no mercy.

Though it pains her, Rachel must say that Vocal Adrenaline will crush them if they compete against each other. The group, she acknowledges, is very good, and has everything that New Directions doesn't.

She's taken it upon herself to find what exactly they have and try to teach it to the pathetic wimps that are her fellow Glee Clubbers.

The high quality camcorder in her hand, another present from her fathers when Harold and Benjamin were in Seoul for her her sixteenth birthday, is recording; she plans to analyze it when she gets home. But when she looks at the screen the very keen sixth sense that she is extremely proud of tells her something is wrong.

And when the lead collapses and the two boys holding him up let him go, his body hitting the floor with a thump she thinks she can hear, and the members plus their coach walk away from him without any hesitation, she feels that something is wrong.

And when the boy doesn't get up, and no one seems to notice or care, performing a song that she hates to admit is amazing, she thinks that something is wrong.

And when he finally moves two songs later, and the coach walks over to him, whispers in his ear and makes his shoulders shake and tremble, then glides away again, she knows that something is wrong.

Rachel leaves the auditorium a very confused and somewhat worried starlet.

It's raining, but for once Rachel doesn't really much care, though her hair is sure to be frightfully frizzy and her sweater vest will smell like wet sheep. Not that she'd know-she's never been around the beasts-but it's what she's been told after the first few slushie episodes when she didn't have a change of clothes.

She walks with a purpose to her car, the latest present from her fathers. It's a little baby blue Mazda Miata, and she really does adore it. She named it Ophelia.

Every step she takes she expects to hear a command to halt or footsteps running behind her to tackle her and bring her down; she doesn't like Glee enough to be a martyr for it, and she's running lines through her head that will convince anyone that she just wanted to watch. Rachel is very convincing.

As soon as she sits down and locks the doors, Rachel high-tails it out of there, her tires screeching on the wet concrete. She speeds for the first time in her life.

Rachel drives to the safety of her house. For once, she's grateful that it's empty, that her fathers are too busy to come home before nine, ten, eleven, that day, the next day, the next week.

Running gracefully up the stairs after locking all the doors, she bounds into her bedroom and plugs the camcorder into her MacBook. Rachel watches the video, scanning it with the utmost precision and care.

She realizes something when it's over.

What she had seen wasn't an exercise in dramatics.

Because Rachel considers herself a master at reading people, and as a accomplished and highly talented actress herself, she can tell that the boy's pain was genuine. She can see the very real terror in his eyes, and the very real sadistic satisfaction in the coach's.

And then it dawns on her, like wonderfully inspiring water has been poured over her frizzy head. She can bring Vocal Adrenaline down for good.

With that knowledge, she decides to call the police.

Rachel dials with a smug expression.

She pours all of her auditory acting skills into the call, telling of "horrific abuse" and "near torture" and the poor boy who was subjected to such crushing pain and humiliation. When she tells them that she has proof in the shape of a video, they ask her to come in, give a statement.

When she hangs up, she smiles.

This will be a marvelous acting exercise for her. Plus, New Directions finally has its chance.

And when she's finished at the police station, Jesse St. James doesn't cross her mind again.


	3. Pitter Patter

**A/N: **So first of all I'd like to thank everyone who's read, favorited, alerted, and reviewed A Parody of Laughter. This is my first fanfic, and I can't believe how amazing it feels that people are reading my story and actually liking it :)

Secondly, I'm sorry for the wait. I've been reading fanfics for ages now, and I absolutely despise waiting for a new chapter. So I made it up to you with a chapter that's a lot longer than the other three. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: Me no own Glee. Me sad.

* * *

Giselle quietly asks him if he wants a ride when Ms. Corcoran finally declares that practice is over and everyone collapses on the hard stage floor, moaning and groaning.

Jesse's in so much pain after going through the new routine more times than he can count with the injuries that he has that he only grunts in response. She seems to take that as confirmation, and gets up with one smooth motion, beckoning with her head for Jesse to follow when she's on her feet.

He wonders why the girl offered a ride today. She, this cold, emotionless, robot of a human being, has never even remotely been close to pleasant before.

Jesse struggles to get up. No one helps him, or even looks at him, and when he finally manages to get on his feet he feels the urge to give everyone the bird.

That would take too much energy, though, and Jesse needs all the energy he has just to walk out the door of the auditorium without collapsing.

Giselle's waiting for him in the hall, slouching against the wall with her head on her chest and her arms folded, her long brown hair covering her face, her custom-made Vocal Adrenaline bag crumpled at her feet.

Jesse thinks that maybe she's crying. He wouldn't know why, though. She doesn't have anything to cry about.

With his presence known, because limping makes a lot of noise, the girl grabs her bag, straightens up and turns quickly, her hair whipping through the air. She strides down the hall without waiting for Jesse.

After he grabs his backpack from his locker, Jesse limps the rest of the way to the lobby thinking that this was all just a cruel joke and that she's already left, resigning himself to walking home like he usually does because he doesn't have a car and god-forbid his mother or father actually take the time to do something for him that didn't help themselves.

When he walks through the archway, crumbling in cheap white plaster, he's pleasantly surprised to see Giselle sitting on one of the benches.

She looks up at him with accusatory, red eyes.

"Took you long enough," the girl mumbles, standing up and stretching, rubbing her face when she thinks Jesse can't see.

Jesse stands there while she grabs her bag and walks to the double doors.

"You coming?" she asks, her hand on the handle.

Not thinking, he tries to swing his backpack over his shoulder and bites his lip hard enough to draw blood when the pain rips through him.

Jesse hates the taste of blood.

Giselle looks at him with a curious expression on her face. Jesse wonders what it is. Disgust? Amusement? Pity? He can't tell.

It's raining-Jesse had heard the pitter-patter on the roof of the auditorium-and Giselle takes out one of those tiny umbrellas from her bag. She doesn't offer to share it.

She shrugs into a thick jacket before she opens the door along with her umbrella. The gust of wind that leaps eagerly through the doorframe and viciously tickles his body through his thin white tee-shirt with ice-cold fingers makes him gingerly wrap his arms around himself.

Giselle gives him with her brow creased, but doesn't say anything.

They step out into the rain and the wind, and Jesse drops his head down violently after the first five seconds, because the icy water droplets make the gouges on his face sting like hell. That makes his ribs shift, and suddenly he's kneeling on the ground because _it just hurts so fucking bad._

Waves of agony flood through him, and the world spins around and around. The only lifeline he has to the land of the conscious is the hand that's suddenly clasped around his.

"I don't like what Ms. Corcoran does to you," Giselle whispers fiercely into his ear.

At least that what Jesse thinks she says.

He turns his head to look at her in surprise. The Giselle he's been singing with since freshman year would never say something like that.

But she's looking at the ground.

Jesse doesn't say anything, and neither does Giselle as she helps him up.

They walk to her car, and Giselle blasts the heater, even though she's probably sweltering through that jacket.

Somehow that makes Jesse feel a tiny bit better.

After he tells her how to get to his house, they drive in uncomfortable silence because there is no radio in the car, the only noise the steady rubbing of the windshield wipers.

"I hate music," Giselle suddenly blurs with the same intensity that she had before, her hands clenched white on the steering wheel.

Jesse looks at her. She's staring fixedly at the road, her jaw clenched.

"So do I," he says, finding it a little less harder to breathe.

The silence isn't uncomfortable after that.

When they turn onto the nice street in the nice subdivision of the nice neighborhood, Jesse stops breathing.

Because in his driveway is a police car.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Giselle stiffen and brake hard, the car screeching to a stop.

They sit there for a few seconds, both unsure of what to do.

Without a word he unfastens his seatbelt and opens the door. Jesse can feel the waves of uncertainty coming off of Giselle, and he doesn't want to do anything to ruin this tentative bond.

So he thanks her, and walks out into the rain before she can answer him.

Jesse hears the car behind him pull into a driveway, back out, and drive away. A glimmer of fear peeks into his mind, because he's now alone with his parents and the police.

Soaking wet, he opens the front door with some reluctance.

Sitting in the parlor are two policemen and his mother.

He stares at them and they stare at him and then his mother tells him to close the door before the cold gets in.

Jesse stands there afterwards, the only sound the ticking of the grandfather clock in the parlor.

"Jesse," his mother finally says with more warmth and love in that one word than all of the words she's ever said to him combined, "these two nice policemen want to speak with you."

They stand up, and look at him, and he sees the pity in their eyes. It dawns, suddenly, a horrific epiphany, that _they know. _Though he has no idea how they would know.

Humiliation shoots into his stomach like a bullet or maybe a grenade because mortification is bursting up his spine and it threatens to drown him, pull him under.

One cop, the fat one, reaches out as if to comfort him. It eerily reminds him of Ms. Corcoran's carress this afternoon. He feels nauseous, bile bubbling into the pit of his throat.

And then he's backing up, back and back and back until the doorknob hits his spine and then he turns and grasps it and opens the door and then through the rain he's running as fast as he can away, away, away.

Jesse doesn't get very far before he slips on the wet concrete and finds himself face to face with the yellow blades of grass growing out of a crack on the sidewalk. The pain that detonates inside of him tells Jesse that he's not going anywhere.

But it's far enough, and no one finds him, if they were searching at all.

He doesn't know how long he lies there, his tee-shirt and jeans saturated with cold water. The pain radiating through his torso and face is somewhat numbed by the frigid blanket of water above and below him. He's shivering and shaking and chattering, though, and when he can't feel his fingers or his toes he makes himself get up, very slowly. He doesn't want to die here.

Once he's standing, he realizes he has nowhere to go. It crushes him.

Jesse sits down and curls his arms around himself, hunching into his own embrace and knowing that's the only kind he'll ever get. He writes the hot drops of water on his face off as raindrops.

That's when he sees the police car, creeping down the block.

It sees him too, because it speeds up and heads right towards him.

Jesse would run again, but he's too cold and too wet and too tired and too hurt to muster up the energy. So he stays still with his head down, as if that would make him invisible. In his head he's pleading _please please please please_. But it doesn't work. It never does.

He hears the car stop, hears the man get out and walk around to him, his steps hesitant.

"You Jesse St. James?" the policeman asks. His voice is low and soft, like he's trying to calm a wounded animal.

When Jesse doesn't answer, he feels the man's hand on his chin, tilting his head upward.

He flinches and jerks away, but it's still enough for the man to see his face.

"Jesus," the man says, sucking in his breath.

Jesse doesn't say anything.

"Let's get you to the h...er, station," says the cop with pity attached to the words.

Jesse doesn't move.

So the man gently grabs his arm and starts to pull him up. Jesse hisses at the pain, and the guy drops it like the limb was burning hot, making Jesse fall again.

He glares at the guy, who's staring at him, then gets up himself, though every inch of his body is protesting and he still can't feel his fingers or his toes.

The man opens the door for him and though Jesse really doesn't want to get into the back of a police car he gets in anyway because it's warm and there's a thick blanket on the seat that's calling his name.

The radio is playing Bohemian Rhapsody. Jesse despises that song, or, really, despises its connotations; it's a favorite of his coach's, and she makes them perform it at least once a week (at if it's not absolutely perfect, they're not allowed any water breaks). It's pathetic, really, what he'll do when he's desperately thirsty.

He curls up in the back under the blanket and rests his head on the door, trying to forget Ms. Corcoran. Even though it's really an impossible task, because she's burned her image onto the back of his eyelids, her voice onto his eardrums, her fist onto his skin.

Jesse finds himself sinking into sleep even before the car starts, despite the pain and the music he hates and the fact that he really doesn't want to be asleep in the back of a police car and the fact that he never sleeps because of the nightmares...

Ms. Corcoran is walking toward him, a sadistic smile on her face.

Jesse's trying to get away from her, but he can't move, because he's tied to the piano and the piano is playing by itself but that really doesn't matter because Ms. Corcoran is walking closer and closer and getting bigger and bigger until she's above him and then she's screaming and telling him what a worthless talentless stupid boy he is and that without her he will be nothing and nobody loves him and nobody ever will and then she's raising her hand and then instead of her hand there are tentacles coming out of her arm and they somehow get wrapped around his neck and are gripping it and squeezing it and Ms. Corcoran is laughing and he can't breathe and...

"...breathe, dammit," , and with that sudden noise he opens his eyes and sees the policeman bending over him, breathing stale coffee and peanut butter into Jesse's warm wet face. He jerks backwards because Jesse hates people being close to him. And because he doesn't like peanut butter.

The guy sighs in relief and moves away from him, running his hand through his hair.

"You okay, kiddo?" he asks, though it's pretty obvious that _he's not okay._

Jesse, his face flushed with embarrassment, doesn't dignify that with a response. And the guy has no right to be calling him "kiddo"; he looks barely older than himself.

And then his embarrassment is forgotten because he sees a face behind the man, and then another face, and then he sees that they are most definitely not at the police station, even though he has no idea what one looks like (his third-grade class went on a field trip to one, but Jesse didn't go because his mother didn't want to pay the five-dollar transportation fee).

Because behind the man, behind the faces, is a sign that screams "Emergency" in bright red letters. They're at the hospital.

Jesse feels nauseous for the third time that day. Only this time his body actually acts on it.

And vomit rises up his throat with the power of the Roman army and though he tries to stop the disgusting mass it bursts out of his mouth, all over his lap and the seat of the police car. Hell, there's probably some on the divider thing and maybe even on the policeman himself.

But Jesse doesn't care about that. Even though one part of him is absolutely repulsed because, hello, vomit.

Because this vomit is red. Like, blood red. Like, blood. He stares at it in morbid fascination. And utter horror.

Then people are yelling, and his head is pounding, and the world is spinning down and down and down and then Jesse passes out.

* * *

**A/N:** I'd love a beta, if anyone is willing to offer their services. These four chapters are not beta'd by anyone and so I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors.


	4. Animal

A/N: Me here. Sorry for the wait.

Disclaimer: If I owned Glee, you'd know.

* * *

He knows nothing, and then he knows sound and light and taste and pain, and then he knows that people are yelling and the light from what seems like floodlights above him is shining into his face and the combination of stomach acid and blood is the one of the most disgusting things he's ever tasted and his whole torso is a mass of burning, aching, throbbing, stabbing agony.

Jesse wishes he knew nothing again.

And then he's moving, and it's only with that sudden movement he realizes he's not in the police car any more. He's on a gurney.

There's a man on either side, their faces stolid as they push him through the automatic doors and into the brightly-lit room that Jesse can only assume is Emergency.

As the men walk and Jesse rolls, a woman comes up to the procession and walks along side them.

She reaches for Jesse's shirt with a pair of scissors in her other hand.

Jesse smacks both her hands away and then moves his arms over his chest, guarding his injuries even though he's beginning to feel faint from the pain.

There is absolutely no way in hell he's going her let her, or anyone, look at him. Jesse would die if they saw what he has been covering up for three and a half years. So he's not going to let anybody take his shirt off of him. He's just not.

When the woman says his name like she's trying to calm a screaming child, her tone condescending and full of sympathy, he just glares.

"Jesse, I need to have a look at your chest," she says, "I'm not going to hurt you."

Like hell she's not.

So he ignores her words, ignores her, closes his eyes and pretends that he's not there, pretends he doesn't hear the word "sedation" thrown around. Until he feels a small, cold hand latch onto his wrist and move it upward. The sensation is curiously akin to that time with Ms. Corcoran in the dressing room-

"NO!" he screams, surprising himself at how loud it was, yanking his arm out of her grasp.

Jesse's gasping for air, clenching his teeth in pain and, though he doesn't want to admit it, fear, and he can see how people-doctors, nurses, patients, visitors-are staring at him out of the corners of his eyes as the gurney and the three people surround it move through the hall.

The woman's losing her composure and when she says, "Jesse, calm down," she stumbles over the words.

She doesn't try to touch him again.

Instead, two male nurses appear from nowhere and grip his arms before he can stop them.

"Come on, kiddo," one says to him, "just cooperate and get this over with, and then we'll stop." The man's eyes are flooded with pity and concern, and Jesse wants to snarl at him. But he doesn't.

They pin his arms down by the metal sides of the gurney, and Jesse feels trapped. He's struggling and that makes the pain double, triple, and when the point of the scissors touch the hem of his still-wet tee-shirt a sob bubbles up his throat.

They snip one smooth cut and Jesse cries out.

The scissors snip again and again, and Jesse thrashes like an animal caught in a trap. In the back of his head a voice that sounds like Ms. Corcoran's tell him how stupid and pathetic and worthless he is for acting like this. He agrees with her, but that isn't stopping him.

Jesse can feel his mouth moving, can hear the words stumbling out of his mouth, "please" and "stop" and maybe he's begging and pleading the words and maybe he sounds ridiculous and stupid but he doesn't care because _they can't know._

He realizes he's crying when the cuts on his face begin to sting like hell.

And then the shirt's cut cleanly down the middle and the flaps are separated and there's silence from everyone, even Jesse, as if the world has been put on pause. He clenches his eyes shut to the point of pain, knowing what they're seeing.

"Oh my god," he hears the woman say.

Then it's like her words were the play button, and Jesse hears an explosion of sound coming from everywhere around the room and he feels the moving air on his wet cheeks and his arms are finally released and they hurt and his face hurts and his torso hurts and _everything_ hurts and he just wants to scream again but he can't find the energy.

So he just rests there, feeling like a rag doll as he's laid onto a hospital bed. It's uncomfortable and the sheets are scratchy.

He naively thinks they've finally left him alone when he feels a hand ghosting along his abdomen.

Jesse flinches violently; it's involuntary, an instinct, honed by three and a half years of abuse. The motion causes so much pain that he can't help but groan.

Above him, somewhere in the darkness, because his eyes are still closed, he hears a man's unfamiliar voice.

"His life is not in immediate danger, so I'll give the go-ahead to sedate him before we get started. It's best for everyone involved," he says, his voice getting softer near the end. Jesse thinks he's left the room when he doesn't hear the man's voice again.

But if he's sedated, he'll have no idea of what's going on, or what they're doing to him, or what they'll figure out. Well, that's what he thinks because who the hell has ever been sedated before?

He feels the slightly painful pressure at his arm, and somehow finds the strength to blindly knock the shot out before the medication seeps through.

This time, he's given no second chance. Jesse opens his eyes just in time to see the two nurses from before grab his wrists and lace them through the soft handcuffs that are connected under the bed.

Now he's really like an animal in a trap.

Jesse is tired, so tired that he doesn't fight back. Ms. Corcoran's voice echos through his head again, calling him pathetic. He knows he is.

"You're going to feel a slight prick, and then you'll begin to feel better, bud," the older nurse says to him, talking to him like he's a dreadfully stupid small child, "and then we'll get you out of those wet clothes and fix you up."

Jesse wants to smack him, and he would, but he's been tied up like a criminal.

And then the words sink in, and he realizes that they are going to see _everything._

It's now that he starts to panic. It swells up in him, and it must have shown on his face because the nurse takes one look at him and jabs the shot into his arm once again. It doesn't really hurt.

Even though Jesse is so exhausted that he feels like he's going to black out any second, he makes a feeble attempt to stop the man.

It doesn't work, and he can already feel the medication taking effect. The world seems to slow down, and then it's like his hands are floating, except they're not because there's something holding them down and he tries to look down but his head is cemented to the pillow or maybe he's paralyzed-but then the nurses grab the remains of his shirt off of him and do something with it, probably eat it or something because the younger nurse looks starving, and then the old nurse starts to unfasten his jeans and Jesse is reminded of the dressing room and Ms. Corcoran but there's nothing he can do about it now because he's in jail or something like that and he doesn't want them to be doing this and then almost everything's off and then he sees a flash and expects to hear thunder because it's obviously storming but he doesn't and then he sees the woman that he recognizes and she's holding a camera and something dredges up inside of him because _pictures_? He knows that's not right and knows he _really_ doesn't want them to be doing this but he doesn't know why anymore.

Then he can't see anymore but strangely it doesn't freak him out or anything, and then there are people talking and they say things like "abused" and "neglected" and "malnourished" and "disgusting".

It's weird because he can hear the words perfectly but they don't make sense anymore. Maybe he got transported to China or something. He has the feeling, though, that if he could understand what the people? tigers? aliens? fleas? were saying, he would be freaking out.

That doesn't matter anymore, because he's probably dreaming anyway.

Something's happening to him because he's not achingly cold anymore and the pain that's become a constant in his life is ebbing away, slowly but surely, disappearing drip by drip into the ocean in the sky.

He can't remember when he's felt this not-bad before.

So when he feels himself sinking into the black pit in the center of his brain, he doesn't fight it.

For the first time in three-and-a-half years, Jesse falls asleep without tears soaking his lashes.

* * *

A/N: So was Jesse sedated too weird? Let me know what you think.


	5. Freak Show Part One

**A/N: **So sorry about the dreadfully long wait. School got in the way. Hopefully there won't be this long of a period between chapters again.

The OC character I'm introducing in this chapter will appear in later chapters. I do hope she's not a Mary Sue. Be sure to tell me if she's too bland, or if you don't like her.

Chapter 5 is appearing in two parts. Look for part two in the next few weeks. Maybe sooner.

Disclaimer: I only own Charlotte. Don't sue me.

* * *

Charlotte is nervous. Sure, she's seen the boy before, but only when he was in the verges of a panic attack-never when he was calm and alert. And sure, she's a seasoned pro at her job, but this is the most high profile case she's ever worked on. And yes, she's dealt with hundreds of kids before, ones with cases even more traumatic than Jesse's, but this one is special. Jesse is something else, that's for sure. And so her nerves are getting to her.

She looks down at her slightly-shaking hands, which are clutching the worn pictures she had taken of Jesse after he had been sedated; she brought them because often times abused children would vehemently deny everything until they were shown proof of their abuse. Charlotte had mulled over the Polaroids after taking the pictures home with her; even after witnessing the boy's injuries first hand, she still had a very difficult time believing that a _teacher_ could have caused them, never mind the scars upon scars that the poor boy possessed.

But then there was proof in the shape of a video, and in the students that had refused to even speakuntil they were told that Shelby Corcoran was locked away and couldn't hurt them. When Charlotte had played back the tapes of the interviews, she had been disturbed to the point of tears by just what those poor, poor kids had revealed. Evidently, Jesse had been singled out for punishment every single goddamn day-though the other kids were severely mistreated as well-and those punishments and been above and beyond what the other kids had been doled out.

She desperately wants to find out why, but she's not here to get answers.

Charlotte taps her foot against the worn, very clean, hospital carpet, blemished with the tears of thousands, as she checks her iPhone once again; a small wave of frustration and annoyance rushes over her as she sees that she's been kept waiting for over fifteen minutes. But she knows that it's just the tension in the air getting to her; she's usually a very agreeable person.

Amusing herself for another five minutes by playing Sudoku, though she's not very good and doesn't even like it that much but it's supposed to make people smarter and she definitely needs that, Charlotte decides that the nurses here are are rather inane for making her wait to see a boy that's not going anywhere and gets up.

Charlotte wonders what's getting into her. She's normally a timid creature, unwilling to take risks or make people even slightly irked at her. But she admits she's extremely curious to find out what Jesse's like, to see just how irreparably broken the boy is, to see just how resilient he could be. The pieces to his puzzle are floating around in the air right now, and Charlotte really, really wants to snatch them and put them together, enough so that she's willing to step outside of her comfort zone.

Before she opens the door, she double checks the room number that was emailed to her on her iPhone. Charlotte always does this, because of the one time that she stormed into the wrong room, ran into a grumpy nurse holding a very full bedpan, and had the contents of that very full bedpan land atop her head. She's not a germaphobe like her sister-god, Emma would've had a mental breakdown if it had happened to her-but she's been careful after that. Very careful.

Verifying that this is indeed room 712 in the pediatrics unit, Charlotte opens the door as quietly as she can and peeks inside.

On the far wall is the bed that Jesse St. James is lying on. From this angle she can't really see anything except for the outline of his body. So she steps closer, timidly, to get a better look.

"There's a thing called knocking, you know," the boy says, still staring at that spot on the wall, or maybe just into space.

Of course that flusters her, and she drops her bag in her haste to leap backwards.

And of course that dizzies her, and she falls to the sterilized linoleum floor with a sickening thud.

And of course that scares her, and she waits to hear the traumatized cry of the boy in the bed.

But, surprisingly, the boy laughs.

Charlotte's definitely confused.

She waits for Jesse to say something, anything, and she feels like an idiot when she realizes that she's been lying motionless for over a minute.

He stays silent after that small laugh, though, so she wonders for a small second if the boy is slightly insane. She wouldn't blame him. But if he is mentally unstable, it's going to make her job much harder; she's going to have to change the plan she's worked out for him.

Hoping for the best, she gets up very slowly and creeps over to Jesse, tensed and waiting for another outburst.

It doesn't happen, and she musters the courage to look at the boy's face.

It's curiously devoid of any emotion. But he doesn't look crazy; there's no wild gleam in his eye, no manic smile.

Then the corners of his mouth turn up, slightly, and he looks at her.

"Enjoying the freak show?" he bitterly asks.

The acrid words are something Charlotte's used to. But the deadness in his eyes, the pools of _nothing _residing in his corneas, is a thing she only sees in a select few of the kids she's worked with.

Kids that have later tried to kill themselves.

Charlotte feels the weight of this boy's life sag onto her shoulders. She'll tell the psychologist, the one the state's picked out for Jesse, that he might be suicidal. Better to be safe than sorry.

She decides not to acknowledge his comment, because she just doesn't know what to say about that. And he's already turned his head back to the wall. Maybe he wasn't expecting an answer.

Sitting down in the convenient chair next to his bed, she looks at him again.

"Jesse, did anyone tell you that your parents are under investigation?" she asks. They probably didn't. Hospital social workers are pathetically notorious for keeping their cases in the dark with things. It's why she works for the state.

Jesse doesn't say anything, doesn't give any sign that he heard her except for the visible tensing of his body.

"So you'll be going to stay with your uncle when you get discharged tomorrow," Charlotte tells him. She doesn't know how he'll react. But she knows her feelings about where the state has placed him; it's her experience that the apple never falls too far from the tree, and she has no idea why they think that Victoria St. James' brother could be much different than Victoria St. James.

But the boy's reaction isn't something she expected.

Jesse's head whips around to look at her, and his expression is one of genuine confusion.

"I don't have an uncle," he mutters softly.

Charlotte feels something crunch inside of her. She swallows, and the rage inside of her swells.

"Yeah, you do," she says. "Your mom's brother. Henry Monroe. He lives in Lima, so you won't have to go too far."

She said that to comfort him, but to her surprise the boy cowers back against the bed. She can literally see the fear that plasters itself upon his face.

"I can't go back," he chokes out. "Please, don't send me back."

Charlotte realizes that he thinks that she means he's still going to have to go to that wretched school with that evil, evil Glee coach.

And he's begging her. And she can tell, somehow, that he doesn't seriously think she's going to tell him that he's not going "back". That makes her breath catch. Charlotte wants to strangle Shelby Corcoran and the St. James' with her bare hands. How they could do _this _to Jesse is beyond her comprehension.

And it's times like these when she knows she made the right career choice. She's glad, so, so glad that she can be the first adult in his life, probably, to tell him what he desperately wants to hear.

"You'll be going to William McKinley High School, Jesse," she tries to reassure him. "And Shelby Corcoran is in jail, and will be for awhile. You've got nothing to worry about."

"I don't have to go back?" he asks her.

The hope in his eyes makes her want to cry.

When she tells him that he doesn't, Jesse sags against the pillow, all the tension leaving his body. His eyes close for a brief second, and when they open she can see that something's been lifted off his shoulders.

The relief and gratitude shining in his eyes makes Charlotte want to hug the boy. Either that or adopt him.

She obviously can't do either, so she settles for telling him that she'll see him tomorrow.

There's nothing left to say, then. She doesn't really want to go-he fascinates her-but her job is done, and she's got other cases to attend to.

She gets up to leave when Jesse suddenly thanks her.

That brings tears to her eyes.

And Charlotte hopes that someday he'll be okay again.

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Please review! They make me write. Seriously.


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